REM Cycles

Associated Learning Outcome: Students can identify and define the different stages of a REM cycle and how the REM cycle affects the mental and physical health of the student.

Pre-assessment: This is a pre-assessment to be completed before the activities. This is to see what you already know about the stages of sleep. Answers shouldn’t be more than a couple of sentences.

1. Have you ever heard of a REM cycle while you sleep?

2. If yes to the first question, what was your initial impression of what REM cycles are and how they impact your quality of sleep? If no, what do you think REM cycles are?

3. How many stages of sleep do you think there are, and in what period of your sleep do you think is the deepest?

Sub-topic: What is a REM cycle? In this section you are introduced to REM cycles in sleep. When you are asleep, your body and mind cycle through several stages that starts from being awake, to being what is considered “fully” asleep, having reached your REM cycle. The main idea to get from REM sleep is that this aspect of your sleep considers the quality of your sleep versus what most people view as important which is the quantity of your sleep. This section will give you a glimpse into what REM sleep is, and how you can measure it in your own day to day life.

Key Words/Introduction:

NREM cycle: non-rapid eye movement sleep –> this phase is important to know in accordance to REM because this cycle leads up to REM –> there are four stages

1. Awake/Light Sleep
2. Deeper Sleep
3. Deep Sleep (still NREM)
4. Then comes REM sleep (see below now)

REM cycle: rapid eye movement sleep –> where your brain is active but your body is temporarily paralyzed –> known as the state where dreams happen –> this stage occurs approximately 90 minutes after the sleep state (Patel et al., 2024) –> as the night goes on, these REM cycles of sleep get longer and longer –> this end stage of your sleep makes up 60-70% of your total REM sleep (Walker, Ted Series, 2020)

1. Learning Activities: First, think about how much you have slept in the past week. Write it down on this chart and answer the personal reflective questions to gather how the amounts of sleep you got made you feel.

2. Jigsaw Group Activity → In your group, read the selected article below on REM sleep.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26060531

Then watch this video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nwNOMYL8mIc%3Fsi%3D55jjhebr0T_wswEY

Now write a transcript of your discussion and what you aim to present to the class for submission. This can be a word or google document simply listing out the ideas that your group discussed from the video and article.

As a group, create a slideshow on powerpoint or google slides and transport the key information from the video and the article into a teachable lesson to the rest of the learners. The powerpoint should only be about 5-6 slides, with one key idea on each slide, including an introduction to the sleep cycles.

Assessment:

Short Answer Evaluation: Please answer the questions below with 2-5 sentences and submit your answers to this site through a blog post.

1. Based on your tracking of your sleep and the information provided in this section, do you think you reach a consistent quality of REM sleep every single night?

2. After learning what you know about REM sleep, think back on when you’ve awoken after a dream, was it ever harder to get out of bed as opposed to when you weren’t dreaming? Think about the fact that REM is the deepest cycle of sleep.

Discussion: An “online forum,” in this case just post a blog to this site and recall your experience with the activity, as well as how well you feel it incorporated into your own life. Detail future implications for your sleep patterns as well. Please respond to at least one or two other learners on this site and provide thoughtful feedback.

References

Patel, A. K., Reddy, V., Shumway, K. R., & Araujo, J. F. (2024). Physiology, sleep stages. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526132/.  

Video: A walk through the stages of sleep | Sleeping with Science, a TED series